# Scandal (2012)

> Washington's most discreet crisis manager Olivia Pope runs a team of fixers who make powerful clients' scandals disappear while their own lives unravel.

Canonical page: https://ember.film/tv/36086

## Facts

- Seasons: 7
- Episodes: 124
- Episode runtime: 44 min
- Status: Ended
- Genres: drama, thriller
- Created by: Shonda Rhimes
- Network: ABC
- Cast: Kerry Washington, Henry Ian Cusick, Columbus Short, Darby Stanchfield, Katie Lowes, Guillermo Díaz, Jeff Perry, Tony Goldwyn
- TMDB rating: 7.7/10
- IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1837576/

## Ember's analysis

- Pacing: brisk
- Intensity: strong
- Complexity: dense
- Violence: mild
- Tone: glossy, tense, melodramatic, breathless, witty

## What critics say

Audiences rate the series positively, praising its high-stakes political intrigue, sharp dialogue, and Kerry Washington's commanding lead performance, though its later seasons draw more mixed reactions.

## Synopsis

Scandal (2012-2018) is an American network political drama created by Shonda Rhimes for ABC. Kerry Washington stars as Olivia Pope, a former White House staffer who now runs a Washington crisis-management firm whose fixers make the scandals of elite clients disappear. Her team includes Harrison Wright (Columbus Short), Quinn Perkins (Katie Lowes) and Abby Whelan (Darby Stanchfield), while the Oval Office tangle around President Fitzgerald Grant (Tony Goldwyn) and First Lady Mellie Grant (Bellamy Young) keeps pulling her back in. Each week a fresh crisis lands on the team's desk, and the cover-ups and leaks feed longer conspiracies that stretch across the seven seasons of this serialized drama. The engine is the tension between professional brilliance and personal chaos, as the fixers struggle to repair the damage in their own lives. The show plays like a glossy soap, with sharp dialogue, heated romance and sudden reversals that keep the pace brisk. Its atmosphere is glamorous and urgent, set among the marble corridors and back rooms of present-day Washington, DC. Fans of House of Cards, The West Wing and Ray Donovan will find resonance in its mix of political intrigue and high-gloss melodrama.

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